


this time around

by ClementineKitten



Category: Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: (mostly fluffy), Fate, Happy Ending, Kinda, M/M, Red String of Fate, Reincarnation, fate referred to as like an actual thing, hopeful, kinda fluffy kinda angsty, pls i just want these boys to end up happy together, references/vague descriptions of death, starts in despair arc and ends post dr3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 16:33:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18450404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClementineKitten/pseuds/ClementineKitten
Summary: Hinata and Komaeda, Komaeda and Hinata. No matter what lives these two lived, no matter the roles that were laid out for them by fate herself, they couldn't get away from each other. They would always find each other. It was always going to be the two of them, no matter the world.The thread that binds them to one another is no less strong this time around, but the life they're meant to live in this universe is less than kind to the two of them.





	this time around

At some point in time, long, long ago, they were a king and his most trusted advisor. Then in another life, they were a prince and a rogue, fated to cross paths time and time again and try to ignore the electricity that shot off the both of them when their eyes met. Some time after that, they found each other again, a merchant and a thief. Another life still, they resurfaced as vigilantes who protected the peace in whatever way they could, one having to watch the other as he lay dying in his arms.

On occasion, they were pebbles on the side of the road, vines intrinsically wreathed together, flowers that grew wild and free, untouched by humanity, known only to the sprawling blue sky and the sun that fed them. Then there were times where they led quiet, uneventful lives that no one would remember.

But they always found one another, no matter the universe, no matter the circumstance. Fate herself had taken the special time to kindly, painstakingly spin the thread that tied them together and affix it to their hearts. 

At times, that thread felt like home. The two of them felt a soft ache tugging at their chests and they spent the time carefully, cautiously winding it up, seeing if it would bring them closer together. One or two times it barely felt like it was a thread, more like it was a spring, sending them rocketing towards each other, over and over again. Sometimes, it felt like it was a string tied not just to their hearts, to their heads, their appendages, like they were marionettes and the world was their puppeteer. And from time to time, it felt like a noose, a curse rather than a blessing.

Whatever the reason, they were destined to fall into each other's lives, whether they landed gracefully wherein or crashed through with a broken coccyx. Elegance was never their style, in all honesty.

Lost and found, like Polaris in the dark, inky sky, they followed each other to the ends of the universe, sometimes figuratively, more often than not, literally.

Time and time again.

But this life, fate had decided, would not be so kind. Would not quite be as easy as their last, as blasé as their first, but even so, not as hopeless as their eleventh. 

Things would be difficult,  _ they  _ would make things difficult, but yet, they would never be able to stray from each other for too long.

Because, after all, fate got bored if all she conducted were tales of blissful domesticity. 

These old souls were dressed up with new vitality and released into the world tenderly by fate, and the aliases, the titles they donned in their new life were Hinata Hajime and Komaeda Nagito.  

And at first, their connection was weak. When Hinata’s parents would dote on him and joke about his future lover to embarrass him, unbeknownst to them, Komaeda would sneeze somewhere far away. In just the same way, as Komaeda was dragged through trauma after trauma, Hinata's father would comment absently as he read the newspaper about a kid his age getting kidnapped while Hinata only half-listened and studied.

Similarly, as Komaeda was in the hospital, reading his acceptance letter over and over, Hinata stood, staring at the ground as his parents handed over a cheque much too heavy to be a slip of paper.

Dressed in brown and black, respectively, the two headed to the place where they wouldn't necessarily have to cross paths, ever, but as with all things, fate would force their hands.

Their meetcute was nowhere near as tense as it had been when they were a detective and a great thief, nor as romantic as the time they played a baker and his favorite customer.

For the story that was going to be set in motion from their involvement, it was rather… mundane.

With his eyes trained on his shoes, Hinata hadn't noticed how many people were around him, and he most certainly hadn't seen the boy whose shoulder he was about to walk into.

The impact made him flinch, and he glanced up with soft surprise on his face. “Sorry,” he mumbled quietly. The boy he had hit blinked at him with narrowed greenish eyes and shrugged his shoulders.

“Mhm,” he hummed.

Hinata didn't miss the way the other's eyes fell down his form, looking over his Reserve Course uniform. It wasn't as if he didn't catch the disdain in his glare, either. 

Even if the two had not realized the change their meeting had caused, the air around then certainly did, charged with warmth and electricity from their contact. The sky was a little more blue, the grass peeking out from the pavement a little more green, not that it was something easily picked up on.

Little did they know the life that fate had painted for them had begun to turn.

 -

“Then there's Komaeda-kun… He's a bit of an oddball.”

Nanami's voice didn't fluctuate, all of her energy focused on the game system in front of her. She had been telling Hinata about her classmates, and each time she mentioned one, he felt his stomach shift with discomfort, longing. But she seemed content, so he didn't ask her to stop. “He can act really creepy.”

“That's blunt,” Hinata commented. Nanami shrugged, not looking up.

“He can be very kind… But I don't think he ever learned how to be around other people.”

The name sounded somewhat familiar to Hinata, in an odd, deja vu sort of way. Once again, the game ended quickly, and Nanami completely destroyed him. “Really?” He let the hand holding his console to fall to his knee.

“Come on, Hinata-kun, let's play again,” Nanami mumbled sullenly, like she was offended by his seeming disinterest. “But, yeah. Komaeda-kun doesn't really get along with anyone else. I think he’s lonely.”

“I see.”  _ Why? He's surrounded by talented people. He himself has a talent. He's been recognized by Hope's Peak. Why not take advantage of that? _

As if sensing his dismay, Nanami cast a quick glance in Hinata's direction. “Not everything is solved with an acceptance letter to Hope's Peak Academy.” She huffed, irritated.

“Sorry…” 

“Maybe you'll meet some time. I think it'd do good by him to talk to a student like you.”

Hinata centered his console in his lap again, and Nanami smiled faintly. “Maybe,” he murmured, somewhat wistfully.

And that was that. They would not meet again at Hope's Peak.

At least, not in a fashion either of them could comprehend. One tried desperately to, and the other, well, he didn't have the capacity to care.

Fate had plans for them beyond a simple brush of the shoulders, this time around.

Perhaps with the bullet that was fired from the gun, one of these star-crossed lovers was trying his damndest to sever the thread that tugged them together over and over again. Such is life, but it wasn't like he was going to get his way.

One who is engineered to be flawless… is fated to face failure upon failure through their entire life, because they were not granted humility.

Though it seemed the other was clamouring to shorten the thread after this incident in particular, trying to get ever closer, it never came to pass; such was a fact that  Hinata Kamukura did not care to remember, even if he did not forget their meeting.

He thought that Komaeda was boring, but maybe, he just was not searching hard enough.

Later, although Komaeda was under the false impression that he had never seen Kamukura before, the two met again, so it was designed.

Kamukura was not the actor who was meant to play the role laid out for him by the stars, but, Komaeda didn't mind the understudy.

When Kamukura said “ _ there is no reason for us to meet again _ ,” he meant it in more ways than he expected Komaeda to understand.

For when the two crossed paths, it was if time was wound back, like the two had begun whole new lives together. 

Was it the thread that kept Komaeda bound to  Kamukura's Hinata's side, right from the start? 

“Hey, can you hear me? Are you okay?”

Maybe that thread is what caused Hinata to jerk his head up, independent of the boy's voice.

His face was blurry at first, as things often are when one awakes from passing out. Hinata did not remember his voice, nor his face. Not that that was odd, either-- one typically does not retain memories from the future.

When he sticks his hand out for Hinata, he hesitates in taking it. He doesn't know this boy, and he's just been stuck in possibly the oddest situation he's been in for his entire seventeen years.

Or so he believes he's seventeen. But age has no bearing on whether or not he grabs the hand.

Mind bleary, he takes it, and with some issue the other boy helps him to his feet and he stumbles in the sand.  _ This  _ feeling, though, this feeling is unique, the sudden and bizarre familiarity that fills up his chest as soon as their skin meets that manages to completely eviscerate his apprehension… It's odd.

He blames it on his groggy mind and faulty memory.

“I'm Komaeda Nagito. Nice to meet you.”

The name doesn't jog a thing.

-

This time around, it's almost laughable how much unadulterated joy fate seems to be having as she drags the pair of them through the story she's written.

Betrayal is a tale as old as time itself, something to spice up the otherwise sweet life the two could have lived, had one not have lived such a complicated one prior.

“Spice up.” How sadistic.

There's unspeakable amounts of tension and fear and something else that neither of them care to bring up that bounce between them like static electricity.

And there's a point where it breaks. A point where it diverges. A point where Hinata has been completely convinced that this goddamn thread that's keeping them together has been cut for good, and the limp puppet of Komaeda has collapsed on the stage, forced by fate to take his bow and exit, even though his back had to be broken to do it.

But it's far from the end.

For Komaeda, he truly believes -- or, well, believed -- it was the end. He did what he did with that belief etched into his heart, and now he lies in a fitful coma, his brain buzzing with T.V static as he atrophies bit by bit by bit.

Hinata has to look at the product of this belief, and he's fully, truly horrified. He shouldn't feel so conflicted. Maybe he should feel relieved. Maybe happiness is the correct response to seeing this bloodied corpse.

The only people who feel happy looking at this sort of thing, he thinks, are people who are completely off their rocker.

Because even in spite of whatever he felt for Komaeda, there was one certainty in his mind-- that was whose body he was looking at.

And he felt like he was suffocating. There was something horrible inside of him, something he couldn't eject with words or a gasp, something that clogged his pulmonary veins and stole away his oxygen. If this was a nightmare, this is what would shock him awake, gasping for air.

But he takes a step forward, and knows that's not the case. Even if the blood that pounds in his ears drowns out the sound of his footsteps. 

Every single thing about Komaeda, everything good, bad, and anything in between, had been severed from this world.

In Hinata's eyes, all that was left for the story of them two was an epilogue. And perhaps, that was all that was originally written.

Until Hinata picked up the pencil and began to write his own tale.

It's strange, the way these things work. Fate continued to be surprised with humanity's consistent drive and passion, their aversion to conformity, and their ambition.

For if none of the stories planned out for you are not ones you want, you need not become a character in it. To create one's own destiny is the highest achievement of all.

Independent of the one that fate picked for him.

-

“Hey! Can you hear me?!”

A special little trick played this time around, one that perhaps neither of them remembered. The repetition of the phrase, coupled with the way Hinata bent over Komaeda's pod, was awfully familiar in a nagging type of way.

Not even death could keep the two apart. 

Hinata may have died when he wrote his signature on the waiver for the Kamukura project. Komaeda may have died well before the physical moment the poison entered his body.

But this world would not release its grip on them so easily, and that's why there was blood in their arteries and air in their lungs and feeling spreading in their limbs.

Well, it was partly the world, and partly the determination of the survivors, that forced them to their feet.

And when Hinata took a hand -- a hand belonging not to Komaeda, but someone of the past -- it was time for their new life to begin.

_ Kamukura Izuru  _ is the name that Komaeda uses at first, but that is also someone of the past, all the same.

The thread that kept them bound to one another was as thick and taut as ever.

And it's evident, too. Komaeda feels so many things about Hinata, but worthy is not one of them, right then. How would he possibly be able to feel that? He's certain in many ways that the others were reluctant to revive him-- who wouldn't be, is what he figures, what with how he acted. He knew many saw his acts as wrong. Maybe they were.

But he wants to touch Hinata, and he knows that's selfish. Feel the texture of his skin and the warmth pulsing from below it and the lines where his muscles start and stop. It's been so long since he's felt another human being, one with a heart and a brain and everything in between, the Neo World Program be damned. And that frightens him.

Hinata wouldn't want to have his hands all over him. Hinata wouldn’t want to touch Komaeda like that. Hinata wouldn’t even want to speak with him, after everything he’s done. It was always Hinata, Hinata, Hinata, nothing Komaeda could do would stop his name and his face from bouncing around in his head forevermore.

Perhaps, though, if Hinata could hear those thoughts, he’d tell him to stop being so presumptuous.

Because when they stumbled out of the rubble together, the dust had settled behind them. They were all varying degrees of  _ okay,  _ for lack of a better word, physical scars cutting deep, straight to their emotional wounds. But even if the ropes that held them together, the ones that tethered them to this world, were frayed, they never once snapped. And if there was someone who turned around to do it themselves with scissors in their hands and tears in the eyes, there was always someone to reach out and stop them.

They had  _ each other.  _ They were fucked up, they had done despicable, unspeakable things to themselves and others, they were basically a gaggle of weak-willed misfits and rejects molded by one Enoshima Junko into her vision, their futures stolen away, but even so…

They were trying. They were trying  _ together.  _

Hinata was the same as ever. Hinata was a constant. 

And Komaeda was lucky was he was able to stand beside him and hold his hand. 

-

If you asked Hinata what he thought he had done within the program, he would have said he believed he defied fate. 

That he did not take the road less travelled, but that he blazed his own instead and led his friends along. 

His destiny was written in the stars and he stole them from the sky and made his own constellation. 

The thing about fate, is that she is a fickle thing. She’s open ended, and depending on who you ask, she’s not something that has any bearing on anything at all. Perhaps for some, fate is a story laid out for you, and for some, you’re the writer, and fate is merely your witness. Hinata never thought about it, until he was faced with a situation in which it seemed every outcome was hopeless. Komaeda allowed his life to be dictated by it, he was never one to dirty his hands in the grease of fate’s churning gears. He was simply existing, rather than living.

Maybe fate was chuckling as she watched these two, time and time again, break out of the expectations she had laid out for them.

Perhaps, she had planned this all along.

A fun, horrific, emotional, rewarding life, a tiring life, a story of two boys who could never distance themselves from each other no matter how hard they tried. The thread kept them snug and tight. And when it was time, they felt alright with that.

This would go down as one of their more exciting reincarnations, fate thought, but now, it is time for them to rest.

Finally, they had found each other.

Hinata has his hand in Komaeda’s hair, working his fingers through the curls and the knots as the latter rests on the former’s shoulder, their body heat mingling in this peaceful, domestic scene they’ve created. Komaeda’s breathing is quiet, but even, as he attempts to keep himself awake enough to be conscious of the feeling of Hinata against him.

“It’s always you,” Hinata mumbles quietly. The rumble of his chest as he speaks makes Komaeda lift his head sleepily.

“Hm?” 

Hinata looks at his boyfriend from the corner of his eye. “During the program, I thought when it was done, we’d never see each other again. But I did... I’ve seen you a lot.”

Komaeda rests his cheek back on Hinata’s shoulder. “...Are you saying that’s a bad thing?”

“No.” He says it so firmly that Komaeda almost laughs. “It’s almost like no matter what, we’re never going to get rid of each other. Hell, I thought we’d go our different ways, but now we sleep in the same bed.”

“What a dream,” Komaeda murmurs. “Bear with me for this, but maybe when we’re reincarnated, we’ll live in a world with no hope and no despair.”

“Wouldn’t that be great?” Hinata sighs. “But you’d probably think it’d be boring.”

“You’re right.”

There’s quiet for a few heartbeats. “I hope you’ll keep annoying me no matter how many times we’re reborn,” Hinata says under his breath, his hand stilling in Komaeda’s hair. Komaeda tilts his head up, chest warmed by the affection in Hinata’s angular hazel eyes.

“If you say so… Then I’ll find you again, I suppose.” Komaeda shifts closer to him on the couch.

Hinata inhales. “Good.” His hand slides to Komaeda’s cheek, and he curls his fingers around his face. “I love you.”

There it was. No matter how many times he heard it, those three simple words managed to strike deep into Komaeda’s heart. Maybe it was because it was Hinata Hajime who was saying it, maybe it was because he had hardly heard it in his life. 

Maybe because he thought he would die before someone ever uttered them to him.

But Hinata says it.

And that’s what makes it feel so special.

“I love you, too.” He feels like an embarrassed, shy school boy every time he reciprocates it.

Who knew how long this peace would last? Who knew when despair would come again to them? Not them, of course, and even though it was something they worried about, they tried to work through it, and lift each other up.

It wasn’t perfect. It was bumpy, it was clumsy, but it was Hinata and Komaeda. No matter what life they lived, no matter what characters they played, that would always remain the same. Fumbling towards each other was a destiny that they could never escape.

This time around, it wasn’t any different. 

**Author's Note:**

> wowza, thanks for reading! i've been in a Slump recently and writing komahina always gets me back on my feet, i figured it'd be easier to just write this instead of trying to force that momojirou fanfic.......  
> i hope you enjoyed it! i love writing very flowery and whimsical descriptions of life lmAO  
> kind of reminds me of that she was like the summer fic i wrote for saimatsu a while back  
> follow me on tumblr @sai-haras for the hottest takes and memes about your fave teenage murderers


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